Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Birthdays and Braids

It is common for people in Nigeria to not know their birthdays. I have not completely figured out why - but one reason is that most families do not have money to celebrate birthdays and so, over the years, the actual date is forgotten. Because of the difficult backgrounds of many of our children, they do not know their birthdays. SO - the Crazy Texas Team, who come every October, started an annual tradition awhile back of having a general birthday party for all the kids. The team throws a party for the kids, complete with cake, ice cream and gifts.


Our girls were so delighted with their gift bags


Cutting of the Cake (look at the girls happy faces)

I also recently had my hair 'plaited', as we say here. I asked two of my Nigerian neighbors to do it for me. Because white folks hair is so silky, attachments have to be braided into the real hair so that the braids will last. It only took 4 hours! I say 'only' because I once had it done with really small, tight braids and it took 13 hours - for real. These mug shots are just so you can see the final product. :) I kept the braids in for two weeks.




3 comments:

Louisiana Belle said...

I love seeing the smiles on those precious faces- what a treat for them to have a birthday party! And your hair looks beautiful!

Afrobabe said...

lovely hair...thx for all the good work you are doing in nigeria

chioma said...

u sure do look pretty with that hair. Thanks for your labor of love. Its a pity their is such a wide gulf between the rich ..middle class and the poor in Nigeria..I consider myself among the middle class, but I can't afford to buy cooking gas right now and have resorted to kerosine for now..I come from the east and I decided to help support a girl from a poor family she thought she was 15 her parents said she was 14 when i sent for her baptismal certificate i found out she was 17! for many Nigerians a birthday is just another day.pls give us acct details so we can give our widows mite to support what your doing ..for a 30 yr old u have done a lot.